Window

When I chose window as the theme, I immediately thought of this church: St. Andrew's Episcopal Church at 84th & Pacific. I find the corner window to be very striking and I'm pretty sure it's been added on to the original building..I don't remember it always being there. It was fun to study it close up and even though you can't see it in this photo; part of the top of the inside beams form a cross. It's such a pretty window and I admire it every time I drive by. -Dina

A photo of a window through a window. I have glass block windows in my basement, and I'm always intrigued by the distorted shapes you see through them.  -Cort

Next Week's Theme: Converging

Progress

This past weekend I participated in Cupid's Undie Run, a fundraising effort for the Children's Tumor foundation. My friend Rachel Mindrup's son has neurofibromatosis (NF). NF causes tumors to grow all over the nervous system and can cause blindness, deafness, learning disabilities and severe chronic pain.

She convinced me to join her in running through the streets of Omaha in our underwear so that we can make progress in treating and curing this disease. And we did make a lot of progress - our team raised over $10,000, which was the top fundraising team in Omaha!
To get revenge for making me freeze my buns off, I'm posting a photo of HER in her underwear - she's in the middle, surrounded by some of her family. And let's be honest - in addition to raising a lot of money, we both made good progress in our fitness goals, since it takes big motivation to get either of us outside in our running shoes in February. -Cort

There are so many things that indicate how much progress we have made in the history of the world. The argument could be made that air travel is one of the most significant. The impact it has on so many people is significant and I'm sure that our world would be a different place if there had been no progress made in conquering the skies. -Dina

Next Week's Theme: Window

Snow

I love snow. When it's falling. And then the fun is over and I wish it was June. I wanted to try and capture snow falling, so I found a dark, green evergreen tree to be the background. I like how abstract it turned out. It also reminds me of the first book I ever learned to read. It was called Snow and it was one of the Dr. Suess I can read it all by myself beginner books. Every page was covered in little snow drops, much like they look in this photo. This was fun, but now I'm officially ready for spring! -Dina

Snow is beautiful in its own right, but it also brings out the beauty in other things by eliminating clutter and distractions, and simplifying the scene. These saplings sticking out of the snow become an abstract line drawing, which would be lost if not for the negative white space that winter brings us. -Cort

Next Week's Theme: Progress

Scorched

In July I picked "Frozen" as a theme, and so in January I pick "Scorched." Nothing that I saw outside this week really fit (no surprise there), so I looked in my kitchen, which is the next most likely place to see something scorched. And on Super Bowl Sunday, I thought it would it would be appropriate to show you some good football-party food. My pizza is actually perfectly baked, with just the edges of the crust starting to scorch. -Cort

 This is how every marshmallow that I roast turns out. I start out with high hopes of obtaining the perfectly toasted marshmallow..not too burned, not too "raw".  And every time, as soon as the marshmallow becomes engulfed in flames, I quickly blow it out, and end up with a very scorched part, while the rest is as un-roasted as you can get. So I just add extra chocolate and call it good! -Dina

Next Week's Theme: Snow